Horizon: Forbidden West and Sequels Messing It Up
A couple of weeks ago, we talked about Horizon: Zero Dawn. A surprisingly engaging game once the mystery of the world gets established. The game lays three mysteries on you from the get-go:
1. You are an outcast from birth. Why are you an outcast?
2. Your tribe got attacked by outsiders during your coming of age ceremony. They specifically wanted to attack *YOU*. What’s the deal with that?
3. The world, which we come to find out is Colorado Springs and its environs, is full of robot dinosaurs and it’s the year 3000 something. What? What the heck?!?
And the story progresses in such a way to explain that these are all part of the same overarching story and the big boss battle at the end of the game involves SAVING THE WORLD.
Whew. So how do you top that?
Well, I’ve recently started Horizon: Forbidden West and I’m only a little bit into it and the answer seems to be: “Okay. The stuff you did in the last game saved the world from the *DIRECT* threat. Well, there’s an indirect threat. You have to save the world from that now.”
The main thing that I’m noticing is that the first game had me asking a whole lot of questions and I kept playing it because I wanted to get answers. And, wouldn’t you know it, the answers were *REALLY GOOD*. So *THAT* is why I was an outcast from birth. So *THAT* is why the tribe attacked me. So *THAT* is why there are robot dinosaurs.
Now? I’m going through and thinking “Yeah, yeah. I’m the savior of Meridian. Let me do some side-quests so I can get enough skill points to regain the skills I had, according to gametime, a couple of months ago.”
So, so far, the game has done two Sequel Things that irritate the heck out of me. One is perfectly understandable, the other is much less forgiveable.
Thing the first: They start you over at level 1. Now, I understand that not everybody played the first one and one of the great joys of any RPG-adjacent game is getting new skills, unlocking new abilities, and progressing from being someone who struggles to fight a robot stegosaurus into being someone who blows them up without thinking about it.
I know that I’ve complained about this in the Batman games as well BUT! AND HERE’S A DEFENSE OF HOW THEY DID IT IN ARKHAM CITY!!! They start Arkham City with you as Bruce Wayne who then gets unceremoniously tossed into the titular municipality. Why doesn’t he have any of his stuff? Well, it’s because he was wearing Bruce Wayne clothing at the start of the game and then they airlifted some stuff to him and he only had access to the stuff that fit in an airlift batpod. Okay. Fine.
That doesn’t explain why he needed to relearn how to throw two batarangs at once or relearn how to do a blade dodge takedown but… okay fine. Part of the fun is learning skills in addition to acquiring equipment.
But Forbidden West didn’t explain why you don’t have your weapons from the last game (though they kind of explained why you needed a new spear…). The skill tree has been 100% revamped and so I understand, on an engineering level, why you don’t have the skills you had a month ago… they go to great lengths to explain that this happens somewhat soon after the end of the first game and point out that you have not been idle. So what happened?!?
Ah, it doesn’t matter. I’m probably overthinking it. And, let’s face it, if Aloy started the game with a full skill tree and a full arsenal, I’d probably complain about that too.
The second thing is really bad, though: The game does not have you asking questions.
They quickly establish that something is going on that requires your intervention but there isn’t really a mystery to it. There’s a threat, you know what you need to find to address the threat, the only mystery is “where is the McGuffin?” not “holy cow, what is going on with the world?”
The good news is that the game is fun and the story, so far, keeps leaning into the whole thing where Aloy gets told something that underestimates her and then she goes on to prove her detractor wrong (Seriously: If your favorite trope is “When Pigs Fly“, you will enjoy this series).
But the story does not have me questioning anything. I’m the savior of the world and the world needs saving. Again.
So… what are you playing?
My gaming report is that I finally beat Fly Corp. It’s a fun little game, little in the best sense of being straightforward and under $10 on Steam. It’s an airline route management simulator, so it’ll scratch your itch for a map game. My progression was just textbook plateau – figure something out – plateau – figure something out, so completing the full map felt like a real victory.Report
You say, “Well, I’ve recently started Horizon: Forbidden West and I’m only a little bit into it”
Trust me, you’ll be asking plenty of questions soon enough.
(I’ve played through HZD twice, plus the DLC, and HFW twice. I’m now in the middle of Burning Shores.)Report
Okay, fair enough. I’m still wandering around the Daunt and cleaning up all of the side quests in there.Report
I played HZD when it first came out, then replayed it just before HFW was released, so that I could move straight from one to the other. Like you, I found that meant the first hour or two of HFW was a bit like more of the same. However, friends who started HFW 6 months after they’d last touched HZD found the first bits of HFW a useful refamiliarization…. Seems reasonable.Report
Okay. I got all of the lenses and finished the hunting ground and I have re-acquired the “notch a second arrow” skill (which I leaned on a *LOT* in the first game) and so now I think I’m ready for the embassy.
Tomorrow.Report
The embassy went about as well as could have been expected and now I’m running around.
Main things that I’m noticing:
1. New tribes! Xenoanthropology!
2. So some of the new tribes have an ability that they probably wouldn’t have without the help of Sylenz. Better find him.
So my questions so far pretty much involve exploring more of the worldbuilding lore with a helping of “what’s the story of Sylenz?”
Which, so far, still feels like a lot more of the same.Report
Okay.
I found a backup.
That was interesting.
I have questions.Report
Hmm. You’re approaching this in a breadth-first way, I see. If I were giving non-spoiler recommendations, I would say focus on the main quests until you reach The Base (not a spoiler, because you won’t know what it refers to until you get there), then take stock.Report
They keep throwing cauldrons and contracts and hunting grounds at you and each one of these has skill points as rewards!
I AM NOT MADE OF STONE.Report
I played through Dredge over the weekend. It is a Lovecraftian fishing game. You are a fisherman wth amnesia who washes up on the shore of a village. You are given a boat and sent out to catch fish (but not at night when the sinister fog comes in). Eventually you catch a fish that is a grotesque horror, and you are approached by The Collector who sends you out to explore shipwrecks for relics and who uses a book to grant you mysterious powers.
As you play, you uncover the secrets of the area. You find messages in bottles that give hints of the background. You improve your boat and catch a wide variety of normal and not-so-normal fish.
Overall, it was a fun little diversion, but given the short length it might be better to wait for a sale.
After finishing that, I got set up to play The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD on my Steam Deck. I have started the game a few times in the past, but playing on a console and tying up the TV limited the amount of time I could play, so I never really got into it. Being able to play it handheld should let me finish this time.Report
Overwhelmingly positive reviews… okay. Wishlisted. (And I’ll wait for a sale.)Report
Two of the best darn games are bundled and being sold for 90% off.
Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War (the complete editions with all of the DLC and everything) are on sale for $7.
The story is *AWESOME* (if dissonant) and it uses the same button setup as the Batman Arkham games.
A real treat.Report